


Missing Parts of a Broken Whole

by Sanctuaria



Series: Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Daisy needs to stop getting horrifically injured, Gen, May just wants to be able to love Daisy okay, Protective Melinda May, all of these characters need a break, empathic abilities, episode 7x06, season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25031548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctuaria/pseuds/Sanctuaria
Summary: Missing moment from 7x06.Sousa returns to the Zephyr with an unconscious Daisy, and May grapples with the fact that she still can’t feel all of the things she is supposed to. Or any of them, really.
Relationships: Deke Shaw/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, requited or unrequited you choose
Series: Celebrating AoS Season 7 (with angst and hurt/comfort) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1764745
Comments: 66
Kudos: 209





	Missing Parts of a Broken Whole

**Author's Note:**

> This one got depressing, guys. Sorry.
> 
> Will probably come back and fix any mistakes in the morning, but I'm too tired to now lol.

The old Melinda May would have felt panic as he ran up the ramp.

The old Melinda May would have felt fear as she herself ran to meet him, reaching out to take the limp, bloodied body from his shaking arms.

She might not have shown it, but the old Melinda May would have felt terror, or love, or disbelief, or hope.

Unfortunately, the Melinda May currently available can feel none of those things.

Why is it, she could drum up some annoyance earlier at LMD Coulson, but she can’t even conjure the faintest hint of worry now, as Daisy possibly bleeds out in her arms?

Why is it—

* * *

May blinks awake on the cold floor of the Zephyr to the thunder of feet all around her. Her entire body is freezing, her mind heavy and sluggish, but that is quickly receding in what she now recognizes as the sensation of imparted feelings departing.

“Here, let me, I got her,” Deke says, side-stepping May to lift Daisy’s body from Sousa’s arms. The older agent staggers as the weight is taken off him, favoring his bad leg as he pants, his cane nowhere to be seen. Deke takes off running, Daisy bundled in his arms. “Nana. Nana!”

Agent Sousa tries to help May up anyway, but she waves him off. How did she end up on the floor? She just touched Daisy’s wrist and—

Of course. She had picked up the drunkenness at the bar; Daisy had been unconscious. “I’m fine!” she barks at Sousa again, who backs off for real this time, collapsing into one of the seats lining the edges of the Zephyr’s exit ramp. May pushes herself to her feet, fighting off the last of the wooziness, then follows Deke towards medical. She arrives just as he is setting her down as gently as he can on the thin white bed, the crook of his elbow cradling her head until the last moment when he eases it onto the pillow with a gentleness that belies none of the panic of earlier. Simmons rushes forward with an IV bag of fluids in one hand and a heart rate monitor in the other, and May gets out of her way immediately, having no desire to pick up on the desperation rampant on the younger woman’s face. She reads emotion the old way, the spy and the specialist within her plucking it out of their movements, their expressions, what they do and don’t say.

Deke, with his eyes only for Daisy even as Simmons shouts him instructions, his hands fumbling to follow them even as his gaze never leaves her. His face is pale, though not nearly as ashen as Daisy’s, and he swallows more often than necessary. His heart is in his throat, as well as worn on his sleeve, May thinks.

Simmons…Simmons has fear, yes, but there is a forced practicality to her as well that consumes all else. Her movements are quick, fluid, the doctor in her rising to the occasion, along with something else too, something May has only seen in her since waking up in 1931. Simmons has always had an iron will when it came to saving those she loved, but this is harder, stronger, an iron death grip of control that she must maintain at every moment.

“Blood pressure seventy over sixty,” Simmons reads off to no one in particular, as she is the only one to whom such information will mean anything. But May knows enough about battle wounds to know that’s bad. Very bad.

She waits for the surge of worry, or fear, or helplessness. Nothing is forthcoming.

“Starting the saline drip,” Simmons says, hanging the bag of clear fluid and inserting the needle into one of Daisy’s arms, at the crook of her elbow. Sousa appears in the doorway, leaning heavily against it and out of breath, balancing practically entirely on one leg.

He stares at her hungrily. May knows that look, knows all about how quickly attachments can form in the heat of battle, bonds forged in blood. “Is she going to live?”

“Seventy-five over sixty…eighty…ninety,” she reads off, letting out a deep breath. “She’ll be all right.”

“Thank God,” Sousa breathes. “Malick, he…he drained her.”

“Blood? Or something else?”

“Blood and spinal fluid, I think. And something about glands.”

Simmons nods, business-like, snapping on some latex gloves. “We’ll put her in the healing chamber as soon as the saline brings her blood pressure back up. The pod will help her body regenerate its own faster, but for now this is the fastest way.” She glances at Deke, who still hovers by the side of Daisy’s bed, her hand in his, and at Sousa, lingering in the doorway. The hand is entirely red with her blood, still seeping out onto the bedspread. “I’m going to need to undress her to do a full examination of her injuries, and we should get her out of these clothes anyway.” Neither of them move. She clears her throat. “Deke, could you grab a fresh shirt and pants from Daisy’s bunk?”

Deke’s eyes finally snap away from Daisy’s pale face. “Right. Yeah, sure, Nana.” He swallows again, then disappears toward the ladder going up to the living quarters, his hand painted red now as well.

“I’ll just, uh—wait out here,” Sousa says, gesturing vaguely out the way he’d come. Simmons nods, sharing a glance with May. Deke returns moments later with a soft black sweater and stretchy pants, handing them to Simmons before making himself scarce again. May moves to help but thinks better of it. One touch to Daisy’s skin and she’s on the floor again. So she only watches as Simmons takes stock of her blood pressure again and then begins to gently tug Daisy’s tank top up from around her waist. The clothing is crimson in multiple patches, underneath which poorly applied bandages are visible. Simmons slips her non-IV arm out first, examining the injured hand as she does so.

“Pretty deep cut, but it looks clean,” Simmons says. “The chamber should be able to take care of that easily, assuming she didn’t sever any nerves.” She doesn’t ask for May’s help despite the fact that she’s standing as close to the bed as she can get now without being in the way, and May assumes she’s come to the same conclusion about her powers as she had. Simmons tugs the shirt gently over Daisy’s head, cupping the back of her neck to lift it when necessary, then slides it carefully over the IV until it is completely off, just the small plastic tube threaded through one arm hole. Wordlessly, she passes it to May to finish unraveling, and she does so while Simmons goes to work checking underneath the bits of gauze. “Spinal fluid tap, right here,” Simmons murmurs, lifting Daisy’s body to one side so she can access her back. “Suspected cuts into the pituitary and thyroid glands with tissue removal. Her eyes lift to meet May’s. “We need to get her into the healing pod.”

May nods, then begins unstrapping Daisy’s heels, tugging at her pant leg, careful not to let her fingers anywhere near the young woman’s skin. They work quickly, Simmons slipping her into the black sweater and then the pants, May helping to drag them up her legs even if doing it fully by herself would require physical contact. Simmons notes her steadily improving blood pressure with a satisfied nod, then wheels the healing pod over as May looks down at Daisy, ignoring the urge to sweep some of the honey-brown hair out of her still-pale face. The urge is odd, lacking the usual protectiveness behind it, but it is _something_ , and May holds tight to it.

“Mom,” Daisy says, eyes fluttering open. “M—Mom.”

Shock suffuses her—oh, great, so she can feel shock and annoyance, definitely the two emotions she would have picked given the choice—and May stares at Daisy. She’s never called her that, not in a serious manner, an unspoken boundary drawn between them, even if they each choose to quietly blur the line sometimes. Some things don’t need to be said, to be admitted, for them to be real.

“Jiaying,” Daisy murmurs, beginning to thrash on the bed slightly. “Jiaying…My mom…They did it to her too…it’s happening again…”

The wave of disappointment never comes, leaving her as empty and soulless as ever. “Daisy,” she says, leaning close in an attempt to grab the young woman’s frantic attention without being able to touch her. “Daisy, it’s all right. You’re with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Mom,” Daisy whimpers again, soft and scared, and this time May can’t help but grab her hand. Panicked delirium washes over her in waves, emanating from that point of contact like the buzzing of a million bees over her skin, but she won’t let go of her hand for anything.

“Daisy,” May says, aware in the back of her mind that her voice has become as breathless and desperate as the girl’s own. She fights for lucidity, to get the words out that she wants to say even as the air chills around her and her head swims from the blood loss. “Daisy. I’m…I’m here. You’re—you’re safe.” Fingers flutter against hers, some of the panic fading…

“May,” Simmons says sharply, and May looks up to find the pod ready and waiting. She retracts her hand as Simmons activates the roller to move Daisy into the pod. A small hiss of air is audible as it seals shut. Simmons goes right to the controls, tapping away. Daisy’s movement stills, her face going slack. “That should put her under,” Simmons says, the first hint of a tremor in her voice. “I’ll set it for blood and tissue regeneration, focusing on the glands…”

_Mom_.

She hadn’t been talking about her at all, but for a moment…

May stares past her own reflection in the curved glass of the pod. She’s seen this exact scenario unfold too many times before. Daisy’s hair may have changed, or her clothes, or the way she does her makeup, but it does not stop the pale face of Skye from staring back at her from the inside of a hyperbaric chamber, eyes and lips tinged blue and an ever-expanding pool of blood spreading from the ruins of her stomach. It doesn’t stop her from seeing Daisy, short-haired with eyes alight with the contentment of Hive’s sway, sick and drained as she is now.

Daisy gets horrifically injured about as often as Coulson dies, and May is equally tired of both. She wonders if ‘tired’ is another feeling she can add to her repertoire, whether it counts as a feeling at all.

Deke and Sousa edge back into the room, Deke standing next to her in front of the pod with a respectful distance between them and Sousa on the other side. The pain is palpable on Deke’s face, in his red-rimmed eyes, the slight shaking of his fingers as he presses them up against the glass. He hates seeing her hurt in the same way that she herself used to, a physical stab to the chest, a phantom ache that refused to go away until her eyes opened again, until her mouth smiled, until she started cracking jokes again, the final assurance that Daisy had truly returned to them.

She doesn’t have to touch him to know what Sousa’s thinking either. He holds it closer to the vest than Deke, but there’s no mistaking the stiffness of his jaw or the subtle display of guilt in his bearing. His thoughts are the what-ifs, the why-didn’t-I’s, the if-only’s. Why didn’t he move faster, escape sooner, do something better. She has felt this before too, standing over a lacquered wood coffin in New York with fresh grief the only thing cutting through the fog of Bahrain. She had felt it with Andrew too, after learning of his transformation.

_Why didn’t I see it sooner? What if I had done something then?_

_Could I have stopped it?_

_Could I have saved him?_

A burst of annoyance flares within her, and it’s not quite the right emotion to be feeling, but it’s as close as she can get at present. She wants something, anything else. A spark of love, of affection, of concern for Daisy’s condition…

But no. Apparently she’s left that all behind on Izel’s world. Is this what she is, a shell of a person who’ll continue to disintegrate as all of her parts are picked off? First the part lost forever in the desert heat of Bahrain, the part of herself that allowed her to prank and to joke and to just be _happy_ simply because there wasn’t a reason not to. Then her ability to feel, to care, to worry, to love, to do anything but go through the motions regarding the people she knows she is _supposed_ to feel these things for. What is next, what more of her identity, of her personhood, can she lose? Her ability to fight?

May has always been the one to protect them. That is her role, warrior turned protector, shielding them from the things that would hurt them, and, occasionally, shielding them from themselves. She is the one who makes the hardest choices and takes the hardest hits so they don’t have to.

And yet Daisy lies in front of her, pale and still.

“Here,” Deke says from beside her, and hesitantly withdraws his other hand from his tracksuit pocket, holding it out. “I know you don’t like me much, but—if you wanted. So you don’t feel—so you aren’t alone.” She stares at him, but there is sincerity along with the pain in his gaze. A sincerity he shares with Daisy.

Her fingers wrap around his, her eyes closing automatically against the sudden onslaught of emotions. Desperation and helplessness swirl in a twin storm within her, the acute pain of watching a loved one suffer that elicits a deep ache in her gut. Other sensations flash by as well, more color than feeling: sorrow the blue of the deep ocean, bright yellow hope as fleeting as a bird’s wing, dark gray confusion like storm clouds coalescing overhead, yearning the color of sunset—

May jerks her hand away, breathing heavily. She hates this. She hates this not as an emotion, but logically, in her own mind. She hates that she has to leech the feelings of others like a parasite. She hates that she can’t even feel these things for Daisy, who is the closest thing to a daughter she’s ever likely to have, in this timeline anyway. She hates that she can conjure annoyance and shock but not even one drop or iota of care or love for Daisy of her own.

She hates that the other half of her heart is gone, dead and buried with Coulson, where she cannot access it.

May stalks out of medical, feeling the confused and perhaps hurt stares of Deke, Sousa, and Simmons at her back. But she doesn’t belong there, useless and emotionless as she once strived to be. There is only one thing left she can give them, grounded in the sensations she _can_ still feel—the sting of her knuckles, the smack of hitting the mat, the burn of muscles engaged.

May is the protector.

She protects. This is the last part of herself she has left to give, and she will give it selflessly to those she knows she once loved. That she still loves, despite her inability to feel it.

And next time she will not fail.

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all feedback appreciated :))
> 
> Also, happy birthday to one Daisy Johnson <3


End file.
